ChipFlow & Precision Innovations: Riding the OpenROAD: Integrating Open EDA into Modern IC Design
Blog by, Tomi Rantakari CEO (ChipFlow) & Tom Spyrou CEO (Precision Innovations)
Introduction
Open-source software has changed how we build almost everything in tech, from operating systems to cloud infrastructure. But chip design has been slow to follow. Most EDA tools are expensive, proprietary, and built for teams with years of experience navigating complex workflows.
That is starting to shift.
OpenROAD is one of the projects leading the way in open-source digital design. It provides an automated path from RTL to GDSII, making physical implementation more accessible to a broader group of engineers. OpenROAD leverages Yosys for RTL Synthesis and KLayout for chip finishing.
At ChipFlow, we are building an IC Design platform that helps hardware teams work more like software teams. That means fewer manual steps, more automation, and tooling that is flexible enough to fit real-world workflows. OpenROAD plays a key role in that. It lets us give users a clean and efficient backend flow with a much more cost efficient support model. The license is open-source and support can range from self support to purchasing full support from a third party.
What is OpenROAD?
OpenROAD is an open-source project aimed at creating a fully automated digital synthesis, place and route flow. The goal is to go from RTL to a synthesised netlist to a manufacturable layout with as little human intervention as possible.
Born from a DARPA funded and UCSD led research project, OpenROAD was designed to revolutionize chip design through automation and democratised access. Unlike other research projects, OpenROAD researchers were paired with EDA Industry experts from Precision Innovations to ensure that the tool would be developed with a mind set of having a working tool along with the research output. Initially funded by DARPA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative, it aimed to deliver open-source, rapid digital IC development in under 24 hours—bringing scalable software and hardware innovation together to make chip design faster and more accessible.
The flow covers all the major steps you would expect in physical design. It starts with floorplanning and Power Delivery Network generation. Then it moves into placement, logic optimization, clock tree synthesis, global and detailed routing, and finishes with layout generation that passes design rule checks. Crucially all of this happens inside a single toolchain.
What makes OpenROAD especially valuable is its accessibility. There are no license fees and all of the source code is freely available. Users can be self supporting or work with others to provide support.
For IC design engineers, this opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Whether you are experimenting with a small tapeout or building production silicon, OpenROAD gives you a clear path to physical design without needing to negotiate expensive tools access or run everything through a traditional flow.
Benefits Observed by ChipFlow
Our adoption of OpenROAD has brought several key advantages:
Scalability to real-world designs and processes
Ability to modify it to solve problems
Deployable on a cloud scale without licensing issues
Real-World Applications
We recently announced a successful tapeout on the GlobalFoundries 130nm BCD platform, our first on this proprietary PDK.
A key enabler of this milestone was Precision Innovations, who partnered with us to address several critical physical design challenges. Specifically, they provided expertise in resolving:
Power Delivery Network (PDN) construction issues
Routing congestion and density rule violations
Antenna effect violations that risked functional reliability
Thanks to this collaboration and the flexibility of OpenROAD, we were able to achieve first-time tapeout success, which underscores that open-source tools are ready for real-world silicon production.
https://www.chipflow.io/blog/recent-globalfoundries-130nm-bcd-tape-out-a-success
Precision Innovations: The Redhat of OpenROAD
If OpenROAD is the Linux of digital place and route, then Precision Innovations is playing a role not unlike Redhat. They are the main industrial contributor behind OpenROAD, helping take it from a research project to something production-ready. Their work focuses on making the tool reliable, automated, and accessible for real design teams.
The company was founded by experienced EDA engineers and has built a business model around commercial support for OpenROAD. They maintain secure, production-grade flows, verify tool releases, and help customers use OpenROAD with proprietary PDKs. At the same time, everything they develop is contributed back to the open-source project. This means the whole community benefits, not just their clients.
This model works well for companies that need reliability but don’t want to be tied into traditional licensing or closed ecosystems. It also supports reproducible research and experimentation, something that's often blocked by proprietary EDA. The combination of community openness and professional-grade support is what makes Precision Innovations a good fit for teams trying to adopt modern silicon workflows.
ChipFlow: Building on Top
At ChipFlow, we’ve built a full IC design environment for mixed-signal SoCs. Whether you're in the early stages of architectural exploration or preparing for high-volume ASIC production, the platform is designed to support every phase of the process.
You can design a complete mixed-signal SoC within the environment, and when it comes to digital implementation, the platform automatically takes your RTL through to GDSII. That includes synthesis, floorplanning, place and route, clock tree synthesis, routing, and signoff—fully integrated and production-ready. There’s no need to stitch together multiple tools or workflows. Everything is designed to work out of the box.
By combining open-source flexibility with a complete, production-ready environment, we’re making it easier for teams of all sizes to build custom silicon with modern tools and without traditional EDA lock-in.
Conclusion
OpenROAD is not just a research project. It is a practical tool that is already taking real designs to silicon. At ChipFlow, it is one of the building blocks of our backend flow. The strong partnership between Precision Innovations and ChipFlow benefits both companies in our very complementary paths.
There are still challenges. The tooling is evolving, and like any open-source project, it takes some effort to integrate well. But the direction is clear. OpenROAD is maturing quickly, and the community around it is active and focused.
At ChipFlow we are excited to be using it, contributing to it, and building on top of it.
